1
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of The Background
There are four competencies in learning English. One that has significant effect toward students’ language proficiency is reading.
Reading is practically a process of acquiring knowledge and new knowledge. The purpose of reading in the secondary school is to enrich students’ knowledge from what have been taught or leant. Students can improve their reading habits both in and outside school. Practically, reading can also help students to acquire new English vocabularies, enhance writing skills, and drill students’ speaking fluency.
Reading is the heart of education and it is needed by students.
However, to build reading habit is not easy. There must be extra efforts to invite students to love reading. English is one of the tools to communicate oral and written. In Indonesia setting, the English teacher hopes that the students will be able to understand the gist of text and evaluate it well without any disturbance of the students' inability to master the structure and vocabulary.1
One of the factors that hinder students in reading is the incompatibility of learning styles with the reading methods provided by the teacher. Learning style is an internal factor that affects student
1 Lilik Sri Wahyuningsih, “Meningkatkan Kemampuan Reading Comprehension Siswa SMA Negeri 1 Kebomas Melalui Extensive Reading,” Jurnal Paedagogy 8, no. 1 (2021): 112, https://doi.org/10.33394/jp.v8i1.3325.
learning achievement.2 Every learning style brings different effect toward students’ comprehension and achievement.
Every student has a different learning style. Therefore, every student also has different learning ways and result. Reading is one of four skills that students should learn. Reading is also one of the things that is often done every day, such as reading articles, social media, books, recipes and etc.3 Reading is an important activity to enrich knowledge.
However, it is considered as a difficult skill to learn. There are many students facing difficulties in comprehending the content of the reading text, including descriptive text. A strategy which can solve such problems is needed. They also have different strategies, such as intensive, extensive scanning and skimming.4
Learning style is one of the factors that can affect students' achievement scores in reading. In reading a text, there are various different ways, one of depends on each learning style.The importance of learning styles is to encourage students to understand what they are learning. Students who study with their preferred learning style can focus fully on the subject at hand, including reading the text. Students' learning styles also affect their motivation in learning.5 The use of learning style makes it easier for teachers to teach. There are three types of learning style, such as visual, auditory and kinesthetic. Visual learners prefer
2 Ibnu R. Khoeron, Nana Sumarna, and Tatang Permana, “Pengaruh Gaya Belajar Terhadap Prestasi Belajar Peserta Didik Pada Mata Pelajaran Produktif,” Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education 1, no. 2 (2016): 291, https://doi.org/10.17509/jmee.v1i2.3816.
3 Vasilika Rraku, “The Effect of Reading Strategies On The Improvement of The Reading Skills Students,” Social and Natural Science Journal 7, no. 2 (2013). 15-17
4 Vemby Ari Sandi, “Applying Skimming Strategy in Teaching Reading Descriptive Text,” Celt: A Journal of Culture, English Language Teaching & Literature 20, no. 1 (2021):
184, https://doi.org/10.24167/celt.v20i1.530. 112-115
5 Rosalind P. Marie and C. Claire Law, Find the Perfect College for You: 82 Exceptional Schools That Fit Your Personality and Learning Style (Belmont: SuperCollege, LLC, 2012), http://www.amazon.com/Find-Perfect-College-You-Exceptional/dp/1932662421. 89-93
learning by seeing, auditory learners prefer learning by listening, kinesthetic learners prefer learning by doing.6
Students who understand their learning style will identify strategies for learning and apply them effectively, hence increasing the effectiveness of learning.7 Marie Carbo in James P. Byrnes and Barara A.
Wasik, theoritically reading achievement will increase significantly when students taught to read through each other's style, reliably which can help educators improve reading instruction.8
B. Identification of Problem
In light of the previous background of study, so the problems of the study can be identified as follows
1. Reading is one of English skill that students should be mastered by English Foreign Learners.
2. Some students of SMAN 14 Kota Tangerang did not have adequate reading comprehension skill.
3. Learning style is a one of factor that has significant affect toward reading achievement.
C. Limitations of Problem
Basically, due to the researcher has many limitations in carrying out this study. So this study only concerns to analyze students’ learning style in reading descriptive text and Its implication toward their achievement score.
6 Alan Pritchard, Ways of Learning, The Lancet, fourth edi, vol. 246 (London:
Routledge, 2017), https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315460611. 56-60
7 Doug Rohrer and Harold Pashler, “Learning Styles: Where’s the Evidence?,” Medical
Education 46, no. 7 (2012): 634–35, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2923.2012.04273.x.
8 Marie Carbo in James P. Byrnes and Barara A. Wasik, Language and Literacy Development: What Educators Need To Know, second edi (New York: The Guildfor Press, 2019).
D. Statement of the Problem
The researcher formulates the problem of this research is How students’
learning style in reading descriptive text have implication on their achievement score?
E. Objective of Study
Based on the previous statement of the problem, the objective of this study can be described as follows: To analyze students’ learning style in reading descriptive text and Its implication toward their achievement score.
F. The Significance of The Study
Theoretically, this study has significance, especially in the study and development of learning style theory in the process of reading descriptive texts and their implications for student achievement scores. Simply put, this study is expected to add to the treasures of knowledge, especially with regard to the theme being discussed. This study can be taken into consideration when other researcher will conduct research on the same subject.
Practically, this study expected to be an inspiration for English teachers to find out student learning styles in reading and understanding reading texts.
The researcher also expects his study is also expected to enable students to understand their learning styles, particularly when it comes to reading text.
G. The Previous Research
There are some previous study which relate to learning style and reading descriptive text.
Firstly, “The Effects of Learning-Style Based Activities on Students’
Reading Comprehension Skills and Self-Efficacy Perceptions in English Foreign Language Classes” the author is Ozgul Balci. This study provided empirical evidence on the positive effects of instruction compatible with
students’ learning style preferences on their reading comprehension achievement and English self-efficacy perceptions in foreign language classes. The findings of the present study also provided empirical evidence of positive relationships between English reading comprehension achievement and English self-efficacy. 9
Secondly, “Visual, Auditory, Kinaesthetic Learning Styles and Their Impacts on English Language Teaching”. The author of this study is Abbas Pourhossein Gilakjani from Islamic Azad University, Lahijan, Iran. This study discusses the use of learning styles to facilitate teachers in the learning process. The results of the study show that Iranian EFL students prefer visual learning styles. The aim of this research is to increase the faculty's understanding of the effects of learning styles in the learning process.10
Thirdly, “The Effect of Learning Style On Students’ Reading Comprehension Achievement” the authors are Nita Sitta Rachma, Cucu Sutarsyah and Hery Yufrizal. The purpose of this research is to find out whether any significant effect of learning style on students’ reading comprehension achievement. This research found that there is no significant effect difference among visual, auditory, and kinethetics in achieving students’ reading comprehension. But relatively, this research found that the best learning style in affecting students’ reading comprehension achievement is kinesthetic learners.11
9 Ozgul Balci, “The Effects of Learning-Style Based Activities on Students’ Reading Comprehension Skills and Self-Efficacy Perceptions in English Foreign Language Classes,”
Higher Education Studies 7, no. 4 (2017): 35, https://doi.org/10.5539/hes.v7n4p35.
10 Abbas Pourhosein Gilakjani, “Visual, Auditory, Kinaesthetic Learning Styles and Their Impacts on English Language Teaching,” Journal of Studies in Education 2, no. 1 (2011): 104, https://doi.org/10.5296/jse.v2i1.1007.
11 Hery Yufrizal Nita Sitta Rachma, Cucu Sutarsyah, “THE EFFECT OF LEARNING STYLE ON STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT Nita,” Unila Journal of English Teaching vol 4, no (2015).
There are many researchers have discussed about reading comprehension, emphasis on the implementation of methods or approaches to improve reading skills. However, there is no researcher or scholar who has been conducted study by focusing on analysis of student’s learning style and its implication toward their reading achievement score on descriptive text.
Therefore, the researcher believes that this study will find the gap and reveal new findings related to the focus of this as well as contribute to the development of reading theories.
H. Organization of Writing
This study used the systematic organization of paper that contains five chapters as follows:
Chapter I Introduction, it contains of Background of Study, Identification of Problem, Scope and Limitation of Research, Statements of the Problem, The Objectives of Study, Significance of Study, Previous Study and Organization of Writing.
Chapter II Theoritical Framework, it contains of Definition of Learning Style, Type of Learning Style, Factor of Learning Style, Reading Comprehension, Descriptive Text, and Achievement Score.
Chapter III Research Methodology, it contains Research Design, The Time Line of Study, Population and Sample, Technique of Data Collecting, and Technique of Data Analysis.
Chapter IV Research Finding and Discussion, this chapter explains about the finding on the data collection and also analyzing the data.
Chapter V Conclusion and Suggestion, it consists of the research conclusion and suggestion on the topic of research based on the research findings.
